Chugging along

This has been a crappy week, healthwise, but today I don't feel so bad. Well, sort of. I do feel like I'm getting another UTI, which is so very very annoying that I'm pretending that it's not happening. And maybe it's not, maybe I'll be able to shake it off. I don't know. 

My appointment with my doctor on Monday was awful. She had absolutely no idea what to do about my calcium problem, no idea how to interpret my test results (normal calcium, low parathyroid), no idea what I should do next. She told me to call the surgeon again and the endocrinologist I saw once this past spring. And then she launched into diabetes management, criticizing me for basically everything I'm doing, and not being even a little bit impressed by the fact that I'd lost FOURTEEN POUNDS. Jesus, I want to write that on my roof in big white letters so people in airplanes will see it when they fly by. Do you know how hard it is to lose 14 pounds when you're 61 and have been fat your entire life?

Plus, when you're diagnosed with diabetes the first thing they tell you is that you need to try to lose at least 5 percent of your current weight, because that will help more than anything else you could do. And I've done that! I've lost over 5% of my starting weight! Be impressed, people! Because my doctor sure isn't. 

I hate my doctor. I really seriously do. I need to find a different one. Maybe later, when I have more energy.

Anyway, I called the surgeon and the endocrinologist. The surgeon didn't get back to me all week -- it sounded like he might be on vacation. Maybe I'll hear from him this week. I called the endocrinologist, then called scheduling and made an appointment for October 18th (!!!) because that was the first available, then called the endocrinologist again, and finally heard back from her assistant, who said October 18th would be a great time for me to come in. I got a little frantic, started telling her about my symptoms and how hard it is to manage my calcium levels, and she finally said she would talk to the endocrinologist and call me back. She did finally call back with this message: "If you're feeling shaky it's OK to take one more tablet."

I thought, one more tablet? I'm currently taking three tablets at a time, three or four times a day. Does she mean I should take four tablets at a time? Or just throw in an extra tablet somewhere? I realized -- actually I'd already realized this -- that the endocrinologist doesn't have any idea how much calcium I should be taking, nor does anyone else, and it's up to me to figure it out. So I said thank you, see you in October, and that was that.

Meanwhile, I've been reading everything I can find on the internet about this, and believe me, there isn't much. The main thing I keep reading, over and over, is that this doesn't happen. Everyone's parathyroid glands start working again within a month, usually within a few days, even in large studies where they look at what happens with hundreds of different patients. It's now been five weeks and two days since my surgery. Any time now, parathyroid glands. I'm waiting.

I'm also experimenting. Thursday I tried taking two tablets at a time, five times a day. That was a disaster -- I was shaky and sweaty and nauseated and panicky all day. Friday I took three tablets four times a day, and by the end of the day I felt better. Saturday (yesterday) I took three tablets three times a day and it didn't feel like enough. But today I thought I'd try the three tablets three times a day schedule again, and I feel OK. Just a little shaky. Maybe my parathyroid glands are waking up? I sure hope so. We'll see what tomorrow brings.

I'm not getting anything else done. I've honestly just given up. My new phone isn't activated, I haven't done anything about the stinging insect problem, the house is a mess, I haven't touched the files. What else haven't I done? Everything. 

No, not true. I've done a few things. Laundry, cat care, daily walks, the occasional shower. Helping boos with their homework. I even made banana bread. I'm also diligently reading Grant, because I want to finish it by the end of August (running out of time here). Less than 100 pages to go. Other books I want to read are piling up around my nightstand -- need to get this one done. It's interesting to read about Grant's Indian policy. Apparently he was the first president to really try to do something positive with Indian affairs, not that he succeeded. I guess there was some improvement, but he didn't respect their cultures -- he just wanted to turn them into Americans. Still, the author argues that if Grant hadn't at least tried to save them, they would have been truly "exterminated" -- which is what the military wanted to do.

It's interesting to read about Indians in their own words, in the motley assortment of novels and other writings I've been making my way through, and then read about them in presidential biographies. Different perspectives, and all that.

Oh, I know something else I did -- I "attended" the twins' virtual Back to School night on Thursday, watching every one of their teachers' videos. Some were OK -- science sounds like it's going to be very interesting. First semester they're going to learn about catastrophic events (volcanos, earthquakes, hurricanes, etc.), and second semester they'll go into (near) space, with weather and eclipses and whatnot. I described this to Rocket Boy later and he said oh yes, earth science. And I realized he was right, it's earth science. Should be fun. I was also impressed by their Multimedia class (they both have it as an elective). It's sort of like Shop for the modern age. They'll do web design and coding and photography and they'll also make things out of wood. But oh, social studies, and oh, language arts. All this talk about getting ready for high school, lots of writing, constructing arguments... It just makes me ill. At what point will Teen B drop out of school? At least Teen A has his special ed teacher to help him. Teen B just has me.

I also made a valiant attempt to cook dinner every school night, and managed to do it three times out of five.

• 
  Monday we had Nacho Cups, which are the easiest thing I know how to make (and the kids love them, no matter how many times we've had them). You can make them with chicken but I never do -- just a can of refried beans, some cheese, and tortilla chips. The sour cream in the fridge had mold on it, but we had some guacamole, so that was a good substitution. Almost like a vegetable.
  
• Tuesday we had corn fritters and a salad made of Trader Joe's butter lettuce and sliced cucumber. The twins reminded me that they do not like corn fritters (weird twins -- I loved corn fritters when I was a kid), so I ended up eating most of them for lunch the next few days. But they ate all the salad, so that was a win. Actual vegetables -- two kinds!
• Wednesday I fixed a package of Knorr Rice Sides -- Cheddar Broccoli flavor -- that I found in the cupboard, plus some actual broccoli, steamed in the microwave. You couldn't really tell that the Knorr dish had broccoli in it, so the extra broccoli didn't seem redundant. The kids really liked the rice thing, and they both ate some broccoli too, so I didn't worry too much about what a terrible dinner it was.
• Thursday I felt awful all day and I told the kids I just couldn't cook. I was so nauseated I couldn't work with food. They ate various snacks.
  
• Friday I planned to cook -- I had a recipe and ingredients and everything. And then, again, I just couldn't do it. Teen A had snacks and I made Teen B some scrambled eggs. Bad Mom. Very very bad Mom.
  
• And Saturday we had takeout Chinese food, and tonight we're having leftovers. I get to start thinking about cooking again tomorrow.

So, yeah, cooking isn't going that well, but I am trying. And now I have leftover rice from the Chinese food, so I can do a stir-fry or maybe the recipe my sister just gave me, for "Sticky Chicken," which I will make as "Sticky Tofu."

That's probably enough about me (you can go back to thinking about Afghanistan and Hurricane Ida and all the rest of the world's problems). I'm not going to make any plans for the week, other than (a) get through it, (b) try to make dinner each night, (c) keep up with laundry and dishes, (d) finish the Grant biography, (e) keep working on the calcium problem, and (f) if I feel better, do something more than this. I hope I feel better.

Plffffle

Plffffle. That's how I feel right now. Just plffffle. And if you're wondering how to pronounce that, just work it out for yourself. It's an attempt at spelling a sound I just made -- you may feel like making a completely different sound, and that is fine too.

Last week I wrote something about how David Sedaris and I agree that Biden can just be left alone to do his job. I still feel that is true, with the help of good advisors. But as I was writing that, or maybe right after? can't remember -- Afghanistan was crashing to pieces, reminding me that I do still have to pay attention to the news, and not just so I can do well on the weekly NY Times quiz. (I did quite well this week, got 9 out of 11 right.) Like everyone else I'm watching the news and thinking, what the heck? Were there any better choices? Any way to get out but not have everything fall to pieces?

My one thought is that maybe if we had left the Taliban to run Afghanistan 20 years ago things would have been even worse. This way, Afghan women, or some of them, experienced a little bit of what it's like to be treated like human beings. Even if their lives are crap from now on, wasn't that a good thing? But was the war worth doing for that?

And then there's Haiti. And the hurricanes making havoc of the East Coast and the Gulf area and such (and it's only August 22nd -- lots of hurricane season left). Plffffle.

Of course, I've also got a personal angle to all this. I'm still not feeling OK! Maybe this is just what it's like to get older. I'm 61, might as well give up on good health. No, no, no, that's silly, and I am being silly. I am not that sick. I just have hypocalcemia, hypoparathyroidism -- the exact opposite of what I had before the surgery. It may be of the "transient" variety. I hope so. If I still have it on January 23rd, it will be considered "permanent." I hope it isn't. But if it is, all that means is that I will have to take massive doses of calcium every day for the rest of my life. Not a big deal, compared to practically anything else, such as Afghanistan. Or Haiti. Just not what I'd planned. But ha ha ha on me -- who makes plans for their health? You can do all the right things (not that I do) and still have problems. I should chill out.

And I will chill out, I know I will. It just takes a little time. Tomorrow I see my primary care physician, and she's going to want to talk about my A1c test -- the results of which I don't know yet, but I hope they'll be decent, since I've been walking regularly and I've lost weight and I guess my eating is OK (not so sure about that one). She'll also try again to get me to take a statin, and I'll say no, and then I don't know what we'll do after that. She'll probably have an opinion about the hypoparathyroidism test results, and maybe she'll refer me back to the endocrinologist (if she doesn't, I'll suggest it). And I'll probably hear from the surgeon's office tomorrow too, when they see the results. There may be more tests. It's a good thing I don't have a job!

Well, let's see, what else is happening? The twins started school this past week, that was exciting. They had to wear masks, but it really wasn't a big deal. Here they are, working on their homework, ha ha. No, seriously, they do have homework this weekend (though they aren't working on it in this picture). In a little bit I'll need to round them up and get them to think about it.

We walked partway to the bus stop together on Thursday morning, but at the corner of 32nd & Ash they made me stop and go no further. I waited until they were quite a bit ahead of me and then continued walking, to the corner of Ash & Berkley, where I watched until the bus came. Many other middle schoolers walked past me, some with parents. It wasn't quite like the first day of Kindergarten, but there were similarities -- mainly because it reminded me of the first day of Kindergarten, and I enjoyed a little trip down memory lane.

Boos are so big. Teen A is 5'4"! When we go to Target he points out adults he's taller than. There are more and more. He's still a kid, though -- his body is still a kid's body. I wonder how much more he will grow? And Teen B is just a hair over 5', lots of growing left to do. So different from girls. When I was in 8th grade, I was basically full grown.

We've been going to Target a lot, twice in the last two days and also a couple of times earlier in the week. Going to Target is senseless at this point, because they are completely sold out of all school supplies. Staples still has some, and I keep thinking I should check the grocery store, because they sometimes have stuff left when the other stores don't. But instead we keep going back to Target -- because, hey, Target is fun. These are some of the school supplies we've gotten so far, some from Target and some from Staples and some were left over from last year, when school supplies didn't really get used -- online school doesn't require so much in the way of supplies. Teen B also has a new binder, and Teen A wants a new backpack, but I'm dragging my feet on that one. There aren't any backpacks left in the stores, except girly ones and weirdly colored ones, and I think he can make his old backpack work. There's nothing wrong with it except that it stinks (he probably left some old food in it over the summer or something). I currently have it full of baking soda and am hoping that helps the smell.

It wasn't a very productive week, really. We went to Picture Day on Tuesday and they got their pictures taken and I filled out some forms. I was pleased to show their covid vaccine cards to the school nurse. I also remembered to take their old baby vaccine records to their doctor's office, so we could finally get the problems with their vaccine history cleared up. I am happy to say that their doctor's assistant called me back and said we're all good now and she had submitted the corrections to the state, so nobody should bother me about vaccines again in the twins' lifetimes! Well, except covid boosters and flu shots and whatever new vaccines they come up with to combat whatever new diseases pop up, OK, I don't even want to go there...

We reinterpreted the traditional first day of school ice cream trip to mean that we should go out for ice cream every day. On Monday we went to Dairy Queen, Tuesday we had Starbucks (a caramel ribbon crunch frappuccino minus the coffee is remarkably like ice cream), Wednesday we tried Sweet Cow but it was horribly busy so we went to Coldstone Creamery, and Thursday I got Teen A a smoothie from Jamba Juice (Teen B said he had a headache and didn't want one). Friday we decided we were too tired for any of that nonsense.

And I did cook dinner -- once. I was going to start on Thursday, but Thursday was a very tiring day, and nobody wanted dinner anyway. On Friday I "made" pesto-alfredo tortellini (mix pre-made pesto with pre-made alfredo sauce and serve over pre-made cheese tortellini that you actually have to COOK in boiling water) and hey, broccoli! Yes, I cooked broccoli in the microwave and everybody had some. We had leftovers on Saturday, so tonight is supposed to be eat-out night, but I'm not really in the mood. We'll see what happens in an hour or so.

I've spent the week working my way through the first third of Grant by Jean Edward Smith, an excellent biography of Ulysses S. Grant. I considered Ron Chernow's Grant, which I guess is the current favorite, but I had read such a good review of Smith's Grant that I decided to go with that one. Rocket Boy bought it for me at the Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site in St. Louis a long time ago, and I'm finally reading it. It's really good, so even though it's been almost entirely about Civil War battles so far, I'm enjoying it. Well-done biographies always contain surprises, and the surprise in this one is that Grant attended West Point with almost all of the generals he later worked with or against, including most of the Confederate generals. Some of them were his teachers; many were his classmates. He also fought in the Mexican War with many of them. And boom, in the 1860s there they were, almost equally divided between the Union and Confederate armies. It gives me more of a feel for what that must have been like, to suddenly have the country cut in half. I think it would feel different now, because we're already so cut in half, with red and blue states. But back then the country was cut up into slave and free states, so I guess it wasn't so different.

This country, I don't know. So much going for it, so screwed up. We are never going to stop fighting that damn war.

Well, I guess that's all I have to say, pretty much. As I said, I see my doc tomorrow and on we go with this parathyroid crapola. I just wish I felt better! The calcium problem means I keep getting shaky -- it's hard to type, hard to sign my name, hard to do anything that requires fine motor control. If I go without calcium for too long I have trouble talking -- hard for my lips to shape words. But I don't really know how much to take. I'm taking Citracal Petites, so three pills is 600 mg, and that's what I take three times a day, four if I'm really shaky. I read an article that said "the body can only handle 600 milligrams of calcium at once." But what does that mean? How far apart do the 600 mg doses have to be? I guess that's a question for my doc, or the endocrinologist, or the surgeon. My calcium level was normal this week -- I think 9.6? -- so that means I'm getting enough calcium through all my supplementation, or I was at the moment the blood was drawn. I remember I felt pretty good that day, Friday morning. I had taken four doses of calcium the day before and my first dose already that day. What would the level be if I hadn't taken anything?

OK, stop fussing! It will be all right. This is just a tiny bump in the road, not a disaster. Someday I will feel good again. It's not the magical happy ever after ending I'd hoped for with my parathyroid surgery, but it'll be OK. I'm a lucky person to live here and not Afghanistan or Haiti or even one of the red states where Covid is spreading like mad.

But still. Plffffle!

Last week before school starts

Behold the now-obligatory (but smaller than usual) picture of my neck. The incision is healing, still a red line but nothing exciting about it anymore. Perhaps this can be the last picture, or the last for a while. In my disastrous tele-health appointment with my surgeon this week, he told me that the scar will continue to improve for about six months; then, after that, it is what it is, no more changes. I must remember to photograph my neck on January 23rd. 

The tele-health appointment was disastrous because I did not follow directions. They said to sign on at least 15 minutes early, which I did not do because I have had tele-health appointments with my regular doctor and they have gone fine. But of course every medical establishment has to use a different system. When I signed on, the software that UCHealth uses informed me that I would need to download the latest version of Chrome. I don't like Chrome. I use Firefox, or Microsoft Edge in a pinch. But Chrome was required, so I had to download it, and when I finally got it downloaded I had to sign in to the UCHealth website again and OF COURSE I didn't know my password because it's saved in Firefox. And so I had to tell it that I had forgotten my password and it texted me a code to use to reset my password, and my surgeon's nurse phoned me to ask where the heck I was, and finally, just as I managed to sign on to the appointment -- and saw that there was no one else there but me -- my surgeon phoned me and said I have another appointment in a few minutes, let's just do a phone call.

It was sad.

I managed to tell him a little about all the problems I've been having, but he kind of brushed them off -- because there wasn't any time to talk about them. He did put in an order to have my calcium checked, so I'll do that this week. I continue to be worried about that. I was very good about taking calcium this week, three and sometimes four times a day, but any time I missed a dose by a few hours I'd start to get shaky, which surely isn't good. Like right now -- I'm having kind of an odd Sunday, and I forgot all about calcium, so I just took my first dose a little while ago, at 2:30 pm -- and my hands are shaking so much it's hard to type. Sigh. I will persevere.

OK, I've now had two doses of calcium. Maybe I'm feeling better.

It feels like it's been a busy week, but I guess not that much actually happened. I did take the twins to a movie, finally -- there were very few choices, so we saw The Suicide Squad, which although extraordinarily violent was also a lot of fun. I liked it and so did they. Well, maybe Teen A more than Teen B. I loved Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn. We also finally made it to the Flatirons Crossing mall on Saturday night -- that was disappointing, because we discovered that the candy store, toy store, Orange Julius, and Starbucks had all closed, more victims of the virus, I assume. But at least we went, ate at the food court, wandered around. In addition, we had various appointments scattered throughout the week. 

Still, I feel as though much of the week's busy-ness went on in my head. I'll try to explain.

First -- not really first, but it's a place to start -- the New Yorker arrived, as it does almost every week, and I glanced at it. There were a few things I wanted to read, but the main thought I had when I looked at it was, "Man, I've got to get caught up with New Yorkers!" So I went through the pile on the kitchen counter and I found David Sedaris' nice piece on his father's last days, in the August 9th issue. I was struck by his comment about what life is like since Biden was elected. No longer do we all have "second jobs" monitoring everything Trump does:

When the new president speaks, I feel the way I do on a plane when the pilot announces that after reaching our cruising altitude he will head due north, or take a left at Lake Erie. You don't need to tell me about your job, I always think. Just, you know, do it.

I do try to read the New York Times every day anyway, just so I can do well on the weekly quiz on Fridays, but the urgency isn't there. Something terrible could have happened, I remind myself, but another part of me says, yeah, it's OK, Biden will handle it reasonably well and you can find out about it later.

Then I picked up the July 26th issue and looked at it -- I'd started to read it at some point, because I'd seen the cartoon about Maui, but I obviously hadn't gotten very far, because here was a profile I hadn't seen of Ishmael Reed. He's an author I know by reputation more than by actually reading him, but I thought it was nice he's still alive and in the New Yorker, so I started reading the profile. His most famous book, Mumbo Jumbo, has been vaguely on my "to-read" list for years, and after reading this profile I'm more interested, because I learned that it is "a detective novel set in Jazz Age Harlem" -- so now I want to know if it has anything to do with my favorite novel from the Harlem Renaissance, The Conjure-Man Dies. Anyway, I'm reading along, and there was the line I'd been looking for, though I didn't know it:

...He followed "Necromancers" with the launch of The Yardbird Reader, a magazine he ran with the late poet Al Young...

The late poet Al Young. Oh, no.

The late poet Al Young was my writing teacher. For exactly one quarter, my last quarter at UC Berkeley, the spring of 1982, and I've never forgotten him. How could I? He was such a wonderful guy. I loved his writing -- I own some of his books, though not, I see, anything very recent. He was, is, and will always be on a short list of people I admire and adore. The world was a better place with him in it. And now he's gone. In fact, has been gone since April, when he died at the age of 81 (and before that was disabled from a stroke he suffered in 2019, which means he probably spent all of 2020 isolated in a nursing home, and oh, I don't want to think about it). I always put his birthday on my calendar each year -- his birthday was the same as my Uncle Bob's, May 31st -- and this year I celebrated it not knowing he was gone. How could I have missed his obituary? It was in the New York Times, which I still read every day. Obviously not very closely.

I don't know why I even care that much. He was 81, he wasn't going to live forever. But I felt the way you do when you find out an old friend or family member has died -- I'm never going to see them again, I had things I wanted to say to them that I can never say now. 

I ran into Al Young exactly once after that 1982 class ended. It was 1988, I was living in Menlo Park but about to move to Michigan to start graduate school. I ran into him somewhere in Palo Alto, I think California Avenue. Anyway, he recognized and remembered me, which is pretty amazing. He asked me if I was writing and I said a little bit but not much. He encouraged me to write more. I suppose that's what writing teachers do, encourage their students to write. I told him I was headed for Ann Arbor and he was interested because he had attended UofM. He told me not to let them turn me into an academic writer. Am I making that up? Did he really say that? I don't know. Anyway, I followed his advice, whether or not he actually gave it.

And that's it. I'm pretty sure I hadn't seen him since 1988. But apparently I wanted to see him again, wanted to talk to him about something. I'm not sure about what. Too late now.

The singer-songwriter Nanci Griffith died this week, that's another artist who has been important to me. I have some of her CDs -- I love Once in a Very Blue Moon and Other Voices, Other Rooms. I associate her with a few different friends who also liked her, or didn't, including an old boyfriend who introduced me to her. I thought about contacting him through LinkedIn, but decided against it. It's been too weird dealing with the old boyfriend who contacted me.

But I never met Nanci Griffith in real life, and I didn't have anything I needed to say to her. I just registered, sadly, that she was gone -- not very old, either, only 68. Seven years older than me, exactly -- her birthday was July 6th, the day after mine.

Someone else who was born on July 6th was Frida Kahlo, the Mexican artist, who was also on my mind a lot this week because I was reading Barbara Kingsolver's novel The Lacuna, for my book group. I don't love Barbara Kingsolver, but I was very interested to read this book, because it was partly about Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, and I do love Frida Kahlo -- despite how cliched it is to love her now. I loved Frida Kahlo when I was in COLLEGE, 40 years ago, when it was hard to find prints of her pictures. I had a print of this picture, "Me and My Parrots," because that was pretty much the only one I could find in the local poster shop. What I wanted was a copy of "What the Water Gave Me," which is one of her most famous pictures, but it wasn't available.

I gave this print away at some point -- we didn't have room for it and I decided I didn't need to keep it. Maybe I sold it at a garage sale. I don't remember. I just know I don't have it anymore.

Anyway, back to The Lacuna. I don't really recommend the book, because it is 507 pages long and could easily have been half that. It would have been so much better! Barbara Kingsolver really needed an editor for this one, but I think she's probably too famous now to take any guff from editors who try to make her throw out all her long-windedness, so, oh well. But I did enjoy the parts about Frida. Kingsolver even says, in the extra material in the back of the book, that she didn't intend to write about Frida originally, but Frida kept pushing her way in. You can see that, in the book -- whenever Frida shows up, the book perks up. Unfortunately, she's missing from much of the second half.

My book group was supposed to meet tomorrow, but there's been a flurry of messages back and forth today about rescheduling. Nobody's finished the book but me. Karen noted that she's also "not sure I'll finish," which means she isn't enjoying it. I get it. I had to make one of my little notes where I divide the book's pages among a series of days, i.e., Monday: read pp. 1-40; Tuesday: read pp. 41-80, etc., to force myself to read it. (I just made myself a similar schedule for the biography of Grant that I plan to begin reading tonight.) And in the end I got on a roll and just powered through, so I finished Friday night, two days early.

While slogging through The Lacuna, I also started reading another book, Right After the Weather by Carol Anshaw, and how I happened to do that is a story in itself. On Wednesday afternoon, Teen B and I went to get him a pre-Picture Day haircut (Picture Day is this coming week, on Tuesday), and afterwards we went to Dollar Tree, which is a few storefronts away. I hadn't been in a dollar store in years, and I was fascinated by it. I bought a fake Barbie outfit, we found some miniature bottles of sparkling cider (came back three days later and bought more), and then I saw a messy display of books. "What are these weird books?" I asked. And then I saw this one. I didn't recognize the title, only the author, Carol Anshaw. She's a good writer. I read her novel Seven Moves a long time ago, liked it a lot, and then more recently, Carry The One, didn't like it as much but still liked it. In the back of my mind I planned to read her other books eventually, probably get them from the library. This book was published in 2019, so obviously her newest. And here it was at a dollar store. I felt terrible for Anshaw. The original price was on the book -- $27. It was at the dollar store so I paid $1 for it. A nice clean hardback. So sad.

Anyway, I started reading Right After the Weather as soon as I got home and then began using it as a carrot to get The Lacuna finished: you can read a few chapters of the Anshaw book when you finish your daily dose of Kingsolver. When I read the last page of The Lacuna on Friday night I made myself turn off my light and go to sleep, because it was late, but as soon as I woke up on Saturday morning I went back to Right After the Weather. And, weirdly, there was a connection. Frida Kahlo makes an appearance in two places, which I think are meant to be connected, although it isn't made explicit: someone dresses up as her for Halloween and the main character helps her best friend repaint her kitchen to mimic Kahlo's, later in the book. 

I would recommend the Anshaw book: it isn't perfect, kind of slow in the beginning and with an odd ending, but the middle is compelling, and the book as a whole is very thoughtful. I will probably stew over it for a while -- it raises many interesting questions. One funny thing: it's set in late 2016/early 2017, in other words, when Trump was elected and took office, and that reminded me of the Sedaris quote above, about how nice it is now not to have to pay such close attention to the news. I thought Anshaw's characters paid too little attention, but I realize that she didn't want to overwhelm the novel with politics (Kingsolver, on the other hand, is always happy to let that happen). Oh, but there's one amusing line near the end of the Anshaw book, as the main character tries to think of ways to avoid going to Scotland with her girlfriend who she doesn't really like that much:

She doesn't know what to hope for. A bittersweet breakup in April? A quarantine put on all the Hebrides, Inner and Outer, on account of some species-jumping sheep pathogen?

The book was published in 2019 and of course at the end of that year came that species-jumping virus we all know and love.

There was another bit in the book that stuck with me, although I doubt it was supposed to hit me the way it did. It's spoken by one of the bad guys in the book, talking about the older woman he lives with.

There are levels, a lot of people don't see that. You can live around here and still have self-respect, work a job. Have a good lawsuit going. But there are also people out here existing on a lower level. They no longer make any food. They eat tamales cold from the can. Or dinner can be Hershey's Kisses...

How people "make food" is actually a theme in the book, though it took me a while to see it. The main character's paranoid ex-husband who lives with her orders weird things to eat from Amazon, gets frozen dinners delivered and heats them up. Another character (the one she doesn't want to go to Scotland with) buys those meal kits. And the main character's ex-but-still-way-too-much-involved-girlfriend is a chef.

Anyway, the reason that quote resonated for me is that I have almost stopped making food. I am not sure when I last made dinner. First I was recovering from surgery, and then it was too hot to turn on the oven. I don't know what my excuse was for not cooking on the stovetop. I'm still feeding the twins, don't get me wrong, but I'm not making dinner. One thing we've eaten a lot of recently is ham & cheese sandwiches: oat bread, mayo, pre-sliced honey ham, pre-sliced havarti cheese. Teen B likes his bread toasted; Teen A, untoasted. The last two days I made them scrambled eggs for lunch. Teen B likes his with cheese; Teen A, without. Tonight they had sandwiches for brunch and microwaved chicken nuggets for dinner. Teen B likes his nuggets with barbecue sauce; Teen A, Thousand Island dressing. Oh, and in between those two "meals" they had a smoothie (frozen banana, frozen strawberries, frozen raspberries, frozen peaches, vanilla ice cream, orange juice, iced tea, milk, all whizzed together in the blender -- quite a tasty combo, I had some too). We've also been eating out a lot. Friday night we went to Chili's; Saturday night it was the food court at the mall.

I have been swearing -- to them, to myself -- that this will all change when school starts, i.e., in four days. I hope this is true. I don't want to be someone who never makes food, even though I so desperately hate to cook. And besides, they haven't been eating any vegetables (except what gets snuck into their restaurant meals). It's so sad -- I buy veggies at the grocery store, put them in the crisper, and then later transfer them to the compost bin. No chewing and swallowing interrupts that cycle. This is all going to stop. In four days. We'll see.

Well, this is a plenty long post, so I will stop here and go for a walk. I still need to eat something approximating dinner (maybe a sandwich?) and take my third calcium dose. Tomorrow, Monday, we don't have anything planned (since the book group is postponed), but we should do something. We still haven't gone swimming -- maybe that? Tuesday we have to go to school to turn in forms and get their pictures taken. Wednesday I have to go in for a blood test, and Thursday they start back to school. Their schedules were posted Friday. It's really happening. They'll have to wear masks, but they'll be in the building, with seven periods (not three at a time, like horrible last year).

And I'll be all alone in the house for seven hours a day. More than that, closer to eight hours, because of the time it takes to ride the bus and walk home from the new distant bus stop. What will I do with all that time? I hope I'll use it to write, and work on the files, and plan and cook dinner each night. We shall see.

I don't know how the heck I am

I always look forward to Sundays because it's blog day -- I like writing these blog posts. But often I don't have a lot to say, because not much happens in our lives.

As you can see from the photo, my incision is healing. The swelling is almost gone. A few more weeks and it will start disappearing into my neck wrinkles. I have a tele-health appointment with my surgeon on Thursday, just a normal follow-up -- except that nobody told me there would be such an appointment until his assistant called to schedule it. It's fine. I'll tell him all about my complications and he'll tell me everything is fine.

Everything is basically fine, but I'm continuing to have a few issues. I think the main problem right now is calcium! In the beginning I was very good, taking my calcium three times a day, just like the post-op instructions said. But as things got messy the second week, with my UTI and Teen B's problems and all our antibiotics and appointments, I started skipping calcium. I also was having trouble swallowing the big pills, and that was freaking me out (what if I choke on a pill, who will save me?) so I stopped taking them altogether while I searched for the "petite" form (finally found a bottle at Target, tucked back on a low shelf where it was hard to see). And even the "petites" are big, so I found myself avoiding them too. 

But this weekend I noticed that my hands were shaking. Why, I wondered. I normally associate being shaky with low blood sugar. But I'm eating plenty -- in fact, I'm eating more than before, because my nausea has improved greatly since the surgery. So, what, maybe high blood sugar because I'm eating too much? But the main symptom I associate with high blood sugar is this feeling like my eyes are filling up with sugar. I'm not having that at all. Then I remembered that low calcium is associated with a tingling feeling. Here's what one website lists as symptoms: "tingling in hands, feet, or lips; muscle spasms or weakness, or facial twitching; shaking or loss of body control"... Yeah, I think shaking hands probably fits in there somewhere.

So, anyway, I've taken my calcium three times today! Maybe I should take a fourth dose too, like they say to do right after surgery if you're feeling tingly. I also googled how long I'm supposed to take supplemental calcium after parathyroid surgery, and one website advises six months. Guess I'd better get more serious about this.

Low calcium is also associated with depression and anxiety -- just like high calcium, how fun! One major change I've noticed since the surgery is an improvement in anxiety, really a significant difference. I feel like I've gone back to being me, the me I was afraid was gone, replaced by a super anxious me who was annoying to be. I also thought I saw an improvement in depression, but that's gotten worse again this past week. And I thought, well, I'm a depressed person, can't expect calcium to fix that. But now I'm wondering whether calcium is involved again. I'm going to be really really good about calcium this week and then we'll see how I'm doing next Sunday.

Other changes: definitely the nausea is improved. And here I thought that was all caused by Metformin! Maybe it was at first, because I definitely experienced more nausea after I started taking Met. But maybe the last six months the calcium/parathyroid problem has been getting worse and it also worsened the nausea? I just don't know. All I know is that I'm much less nauseated, have more of an appetite, and have less heartburn. And although I haven't gained weight yet, I know I will unless I'm more careful about what I eat, so that's something I'm thinking about. If I just remember to eat like a diabetic and keep taking my evening walks, I think I should be OK. We'll see.

Here's something different: I go to a support group once a month -- I won't say what it's for, because it's the only one like it anywhere around here. Suffice it to say, the people who attend are sad and need comfort. I was a mess at the July meeting, cried the whole time, told them all about my problems (most of which had nothing to do with the group), and generally took up a lot of space. This month (yesterday) I wasn't sure if I wanted to go -- the air was bad, didn't want to drive, didn't feel like I had much to say. Then I thought, maybe there's someone there I need to listen to. So I went. And like before, I cried through much of it -- but I was crying because other people's stories were sad. I contributed various remarks, but I mainly listened to other people. 

Afterwards I thought, wow -- I think I am better. I had the energy to think outside myself.

So, on we go. I did some of the things I planned to do this week, or started to, but one big thing I ignored was our stinging insect problem. The yellow jacket nest is still in the back gate (despite all the peppermint I sprayed at it) and then there's the big hornet nest on the back patio. I've been putting off calling an exterminator because I'm afraid they'll end up exterminating native bees and other nice creatures too. Anyway, one night this week there was some noise on the patio, to which I responded by closing the kitchen curtains. I didn't know what it was, it sounded like a person, so my one thought was that I didn't want to see it. Makes a lot of sense.

Anyway, the next morning the nest looked like this! There are bits of it all over the ground. The "something" had probably been a bear, and it took a big handful of the nest! I had read that bears like to eat the larvae in hornet nests. I really hoped the bear would come back and finish the job, but it hasn't, and the queen must still be there, because the hornets are still using the nest, just as though it were intact. Darn.

Another thing on my list for last week was setting up my new phone, which I did not do, so that moves along to this coming week's list. At some point my old phone is not going to work anymore at all, at which point I'll have to do something. I just don't understand how to transfer the information from my old phone to my new phone. All my photos, my texts, my contacts. That's the problem. If someone would explain to me how to do that, maybe I could do it.

Another thing on the list was working on the files, which I did spend a little time doing. When Rocket Boy was here he finally went through our four big file cabinets and labeled each drawer as either yellow or red. Red means don't touch; yellow means go for it. So then I went through the files myself and decided what to do about each drawer that I was allowed to touch. Today I finally started working on the third drawer down in the first cabinet on the left. See the yellow sticker? It had one folder in it that belonged in the second drawer of the second cabinet, and then the rest is basically junk, but I am working my way through it, looking for any hidden treasures. I feel kind of bad, throwing away old articles clipped from the Daily Camera in the 1980s, but the articles are things like "Are electric fields harmful to our brains?" and "Ways to eliminate fat from your diet," and I think they don't need to be saved any longer. 

Last week I started reading a book I've had lying around for a while, Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen. Someone recommended it to me once. I was reading through it and it had some good ideas, a change from my endless to-do lists anyway, so I was going to try out this guy's methods. The only problem was, the first thing you were supposed to do was set up a place to work, a clean desk with an inbox and a file cabinet (which you would then proceed to fill with all your plans and undone projects). And I thought, well, I can't do that until I clean out the files! So I've got Getting Things Done on hold until I can get this very big thing done, the file cabinets -- which I can already see is going to take a long, long time. No wonder I couldn't get started on it earlier this year. It's an enormous task that I will have to just work on step by step, drawer by drawer, file by file, on and on. Rocket Boy spent 40 or 50 years accumulating these files -- I won't be able to get rid of them in an afternoon.

Another thing I did this week -- I guess it's been kind of a busy week -- was reconnect with an old friend from high school. An old boyfriend from high school, to be more specific. He found me on LinkedIn, which I guess is as good a use for LinkedIn as anything. We started chatting, this progressed to texting, and then we moved on to email. I was nervous about the whole thing because it seemed like something out of Dear Abby (as soon as possible I told Rocket Boy all about it, in case he wanted to be jealous -- he wasn't). The old boyfriend and I broke up 42 years ago, in February 1979. I remember it well. He's been married for 31 years, me for almost 19 (as of this Tuesday), we have two children each. But he said he just wanted to talk to people from his past. So we've been talking. And it's exhausting. He was silent today, after several message-filled days. I appreciated the break. I can only take so much Memory Lane, I guess.

OK, enough -- time to think a little more about the week ahead. I haven't taken the kids anywhere fun in forever, it seems like. I thought we would do something fun this past week, but we just sat around. Now we've got one full week left until the week when school starts and it's full of not-fun things like doctor appointments. I'd like to try to do a few fun things: swimming, a trip to the mall, a movie. Or whatever they want to do. I'll see. I told them to choose one thing for tomorrow, so we'll see what it's going to be. As long as it's inside, away from the heat and the bad air from the California fires.

And yes, I know, I haven't done a resolution round-up in a while, and I'm not going to do one now either. School is about to start, our lives are about to be up-ended, the summer's been weird. Maybe in September I'll look at my resolutions again and make plans. Right now I just want to get through the days, end summer in a positive way, and look ahead to school. After that, who knows?

Reading post: The Cherokee Night

This week I finished my seventh item for the Classics Challenge: The Cherokee Night by [Rollie] Lynn Riggs (Cherokee). Since it's a play, it fulfills category #12, "A classic play." It premiered in 1932 and was published in 1936. I originally got this (in a different collection) from the library, but eventually decided to buy a copy: the version I got was published in 2003 by the University of Oklahoma Press with two other plays by Riggs (including "Green Grow the Lilacs," which the musical "Oklahoma!" was based on) which I also read, for a little context. I don't feel as though I know much about Riggs -- there is a biography, but of course our library doesn't have it. Wikipedia and random internet articles will have to do.

I knew when I started reading through my list for the Challenge that I would get to a point where the books would talk to each other, and I think I have reached that point. The key is that so many of them are by writers with Cherokee heritage. This is my third and there will be at least one more. It's particularly striking because Lynn Riggs grew up outside Claremore, Oklahoma -- the hometown of the last author I read, Will Rogers. In fact, the character Laurey, in "Green Grow the Lilacs," is referred to as "the belle of Claremore," something that wouldn't have meant anything to me if I hadn't just read that biography of Rogers. Lynn Riggs was born in 1899, 20 years after Rogers (and 72 years after John Rollin Ridge, my first Cherokee author), so this is the next generation. Rogers got the chance to be a cowboy, but Riggs couldn't have even if he'd wanted to -- the open range was gone. That's part of what he writes about.

I've always liked "Oklahoma!" I had the record of it when I was a kid (could have sworn I still had it, but I can't find it). My kids know that if anyone even mentions the name of the state I'm liable to break into a spirited rendition of the title song. It's so interesting to find out that the original play, "Green Grow the Lilacs," was also a musical, but the songs were traditional folk songs, including the title lyric. Riggs wasn't pleased to have them replaced by show tunes in "Oklahoma!" It's also so very interesting to realize that some/all? of the characters in the play were intended to be part Cherokee, like Riggs. It's only mentioned at the very end of the play, when Aunt Eller accuses the neighbors who have come to take Curley back to jail of being "furriners" -- in other words, Americans, because the story is taking place in Indian Territory. (Remember the song from the musical, "The farmer and the cowman"? "Territory folks should stick together; territory folks should all be pals..." My little sister and her husband at one point learned all the words to that song and danced to it.) Oklahoma isn't a state yet. And the neighbors reply that they aren't "furriners," they're just "plumb full of Indian blood." Wow, if that's anywhere in the musical I must have missed it.

"The Cherokee Night" doesn't hide its characters' origins. The play is about what it means to be an Indian in the modern world. Specifically what it means to be Cherokee, but Scene 6 is about their Osage neighbors (their historical enemies), too. The Osage tribe is famous for having oil on their reservation, and for having retained the mineral rights, so in the early part of the 20th century many of the tribe's members became very wealthy very quickly. Scene 6 presents a very stereotypical view of them, somewhat out of synch with the rest of the play.

I can see why this play is considered an important work, especially within Native American literature, and I can also see why it hasn't been produced much since the 1930s. The play consists of seven scenes, with an intermission after the fourth. Each scene takes place in a different year: 1915, 1927, 1931, 1906, 1913, 1919, and 1895, in that order. I'm sure in 1932 people had a sense of the differences between those times, but that knowledge would have faded quickly. For example, in Scene 2, Bee is described as wearing "the clothes of 1927." Anyone have any idea what those were?

At the start of the play we're introduced to six young people, five of whom figure in later scenes as well. I got some sense of the characters here, but during the rest of the play I had to keep flipping back to the People list to remind myself of who was who and why they were important. I can imagine that I might be very confused were I to watch the play being performed, especially since the characters appear at different ages and in some cases their relatives appear and we're supposed to understand who they are, remember their last names and so on. There are 30 different people in the cast, plus extras. It's a lot to keep track of.

Some of the scenes are much stronger than others. Some probably require more background than I have to understand them. Scene 5 is about the members of a renegade "church" near Tahlequah, Oklahoma. I'm guessing this is making reference to an actual church or religious movement, but I know nothing about it. Scene 4 would have to be somewhat rewritten were the play to be performed today, because of its constant use of the n-word to refer to Black characters.

All that said, the play is a moving exploration of what it means to be Cherokee in the modern world (at least the world of the 1930s), or half Cherokee, or even one-eighth Cherokee (like Jon Gray, current pitcher for the Colorado Rockies -- I learned that today while following links). There aren't any real answers given, but lots of questions. At the end, an older full-blood Indian called John Gray-Wolf expresses the opinion that everyone around him needs to be more Indian, not less, not try to deny themselves. But what that would mean for some of the characters -- for Riggs himself -- isn't really clear.

Getting better, slowly

Last week my post was so cheerful, so hopeful! And so wrong! I was not all better, I was getting worse, descending into the misery of a UTI probably complicated by the opioid painkiller. There were some really bad days last week. But it's now been nine days since my surgery (and three days since I started antibiotics) and I think I can truly say I am getting better. Slowly.

I do understand now why they recommended 7-10 days off work, though. If I had a regular job, I might be able to go back to it tomorrow, but a few more days off might be a good idea too. (Of course, I wasn't supposed to get a UTI.)

I think my incision is looking a little better, although it's still more swollen than I thought it would be. I basically leave it alone, except to cup my hand over it when Baby Kitty is giving me love. Otherwise I ignore it, though when it's hot and humid, I feel sweat around the lump and try to lean my head back to be more comfortable. I don't know whether it's supposed to still be swollen like this -- no one told me. Later this month I will see my primary care physician, so I will ask her about that if it hasn't improved.

I don't know if I want to write about last week! It was pretty terrible -- I never get UTIs and this one was awful, with intense bladder spasms and multiple accidents -- and it was complicated by the fact that Teen B was having medical problems of his own. I don't think I mentioned that he was having some issues on our trip to St. Louis (overshadowed by his father's medical problems, of course) and we even took him to Urgent Care, the day before Rocket Boy went to the hospital. I was supposed to follow up with his doctor when we got back to Boulder, but his new braces (and teeth pulling) and my surgery preparations ended up using all the oxygen in the room and I didn't do it. So it kind of makes sense that his problems would surface again, whether or not I was ready for them to do so. Suffice it to say that last Wednesday I had to make two trips to the Boulder Medical Center, one for me (the lab, to diagnose my UTI finally) and one for him (Urgent Care, again). 

Now he and I are both on antibiotics, and while I'm feeling better, he isn't, really. Maybe a little. This might be in part because he has to take his pills every 6 hours (mine are every 12 hours) and we haven't yet come close to getting that right -- because, come on, I'm supposed to wake him up at 4 in the morning (after first waking myself up at 4 in the morning) to take a pill that has to be taken with food? I haven't even tried to get that right. I have a call in to a specialist -- they were supposed to call me back but didn't, I'll have to call again on Monday. More unpleasant stuff may be in our future. I can hardly wait.

But I keep reminding myself to be grateful for three things:

1. We have pretty good health insurance (I say "pretty" because we've started getting the bills for Rocket Boy's adventures back in June and they're exciting, but so far RB has been able to work things out with Blue Cross and Medicare).
2. There are lots of good doctors in our area (if you define "our area" to include Aurora, sigh).
3. Because I'm not working, I have time to arrange and attend all the medical and dental appointments we have needed recently.
   

Before the surgery, I told everyone that it was going to make me feel a lot better. As I start to recover from it, I am wondering whether that is true. Am I feeling better?

Maybe. 

To review, here are some symptoms of hyperparathyroidism, aka hypercalcemia (from various websites): fatigue, back pain and joint pain, muscle aches and weakness, increased urine output and thirst, loss of appetite, nausea, vomiting, constipation, depression, anxiety, headaches, forgetfulness, lethargy.

I have had several of these symptoms, but they could be attributed to other things as well. For instance, I was first diagnosed with a "nervous stomach," "spastic colon" (an older term), and "irritable bowel syndrome" when I was a teenager. I'm also taking Metformin, which has well-known gastrointestinal effects. I've dealt with chronic depression since I was a teenager. I'm fat, which certainly contributes to my aches and pains. And I'm 61, which might have something to do with the forgetfulness and fatigue.

Still, I've felt worse than I should have for the last few years. So maybe I'll start feeling a little better. I already feel like I have a bit more energy, and there's a layer of calm over my usual anxiety that wasn't there before, as if someone laid a blanket over it. Interesting. Of course, I could be feeling better simply because I think I ought to feel better. But, you know what? I'd take that. Surgery, the power of suggestion -- I don't really care what makes me feel better, as long as I feel better.

I wouldn't mind losing a little of my constant nausea, but at the same time, I don't want my weight loss to slow. As of today, I am down 15.6 pounds from January 1st of this year, roughly 2 pounds per month, without a shred of dieting and with pretty minimal exercise. I do try to take a walk every night, now, but the walks are less than 30 minutes, usually more like 20 minutes. This past week they've been about 10 minutes each, as I try to get my strength back. I credit the Metformin for the weight loss, but what if hypercalcemia has been a contributing factor? We'll have to see.

I turned the calendar over to August this morning and whoa! What happened to summer? School starts on August 19th -- that's less than 3 weeks away! All of a sudden I'm filled with a sense of urgency -- so many things to do and so little time to do them. I got right on a couple of them: made a hair appointment for Teen B so he won't look so shaggy for Picture Day (August 17th) and ordered a new pair of shoes for Teen A, even though he claims his current shoes still fit. One morning he'll wake up and say they don't fit and we won't have a back-up pair -- except that we will, because I just ordered them.

He's also outgrowing his shorts, and since he wears shorts on all but the coldest days, I'm trying to stock up now (hard to find shorts in the stores in November). He's officially outgrown Carter's, so I ordered four pairs from Oshkosh, but he doesn't really like any of them, plus they're too big! (Size 14 from Carter's is too small, size 14 from Oshkosh is too big. Sigh.) He's wearing them, but grudgingly. Not sure if I should buy more or look at other stores. I have a little leeway with Teen B, because he can wear the shorts Teen A is in the process of outgrowing, at least for a while. But if Teen B suddenly has a growth spurt, I'll be in trouble.

I don't think either boy needs new shirts. Teen A wears almost exclusively gray shirts (once in a while black or navy) and Teen B has started to wear almost nothing but black shirts (occasionally gray or navy). I might as well give away most of their colorful shirts. If we run low on gray or black shirts, they should be findable in winter. Oh, but sweatshirts! I have to find Teen B a new sweatshirt to wear all day every day at school. At least there should be plenty of sweatshirts to choose from in the fall.

The Week Ahead

I am behind on a million different projects and I'm not going to get caught up on everything immediately. So I'll just jot down a random list, with the idea that they'll all fall into place eventually:

• Call a pest company to deal with our yellow jacket and paper wasp problem (I'll be sorry to see the paper wasp nest go, but since we're all afraid to go in the backyard, it probably needs to happen).
• Call Children's Hospital for Teen B; possibly call Blue Cross about it too and also ask them about the interesting bill I got last week...
  
• Work on the files -- organize a plan of attack and then attack!
  
• Plan meals for the week ahead, take stock (I haven't really cooked in the last few weeks).
• Read the next book for the Classics Challenge; read the Book Group book; read my Grant biography...
• Set up my new cell phone; OMG stop putting this off!
• Ask the kids what fun things they wish we'd done this summer; arrange to do some of them...
• Send cards: birthdays and our anniversary (I did order some See's for Rocket Boy a few days ago -- that'll be fun when he gets it).
  
• Take our vacuum cleaner to be repaired, also maybe my old sewing machine.
• Alternatively, learn how to use the new sewing machine and work on the doll clothes project.
• Study the two home repair problems we were going to deal with this summer (before medical issues trumped everything) and decide whether to go ahead with either one of them, which one first, and how to do that...
• Deal with the mess that is the backyard -- maybe hire someone to slash and burn? (not literally)
• Reevaluate my approach to cleaning the house; or hey, just clean it a little.
• Think about the overall clutter in the house, especially with an eye to creating study spaces for the kids (8th grade is when the homework gets more serious).
  
• Rearrange the messy biography bookshelves, cull them; make piles of books from there and other parts of the house to give to either the Bookworm or a Little Free Library.
• Find out what else I need to do to prepare for the start of school (school supplies? transportation if there's no bus this year? new masks? conveying the results of Teen B's testing last spring to his counselor?)
  
• Work on what I need to do to renew the rental license for next door (we're a year late, ack!).
• Start planning Rocket Boy's next visit out here, and possibly a Thanksgiving trip...

Yeah, OK, that list could go on and on, and just looking at it is scary. But I guess I'll start somewhere and see what happens. The cell phone, Teen B's appointment, meals, fun stuff, the files, and maybe the pest control people would probably be more than enough to grapple with in one week. I'll give it a shot.

August is a long month, a long hot month most likely. We got a little break from the heat yesterday, and some much-needed rain, with more coming in the next few days. But now we also have bad air, smoky from the western forest fires, and by next weekend it will be hot again. I'll need to pace myself. Try to enjoy what we have, not worry too much about what we don't -- after all, we live in the most desirable place in the country, according to USA Today. Try to appreciate it!